Choreopoem Narrative Text Complete - Next Steps !

What a great feeling! To have completed the narrative of the choreopoem. As always it has been, another fascinating journey, in terms of the research and creating a fictional story, that will I hope will be compelling and animate the St Georges/Cultural Quarter area. Using a range of sources and archive material, for the narrative, as well as referring to the areas geography - its streets, buildings and of course people over time. I have drawn on my own and others experiences and recollections of the area. Highlighting the bar club culture and other buildings that housed e.g the organization Spectrum - a building used primarily by the Leicester African Caribbean community, that was the birth place of Dance music pioneers DJ SS and yours truly ( my first ever House Music performance) , alongside  other memorable community events. A notable selection include  Ajani Women & Girls Centre 10 years Celebration Show, Free Nelson Mandela Benefits and Jazzethics Shows featuring the Jazz Warriors, Jean Toussaint (saxophonist) , Alan Weeks and Phillip Bent (flutist).

The next stage is to enter into discussions, with project colleagues, as to how to digitally present selected parts of the choreopoem. In addition to plans for a public reading/sharing,in the Autumn, as part of the overall continuing development of the piece. As in time, there will be music to be composed and movement devised as part of the work. This choreopoem raises contentious and controversial issues so I am keen to know how an audience responds.

In the Zone & Remembering Sue Townsend And Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Despite a busy month of work activities and some untoward  personal events I will not go into here…I have got 'into the zone' that is the immersion, I experience when writing, After all the research the notes ,  its then time to just write and go with the flow - see where it all goes.  I rather like the way you can be surprised, when your loose plan of things, takes an interesting turn or some deep insight suddenly becomes apparent about a character or an situation.  It  is therefore important to be open and be flexible, to be ready to change things as the situation demands. This can be  fun, also when a characters voice comes thorough loud and clear, there is s feeling of exhilaration as you try to capture that voice.  Of course the narrative is the  journey and the plot the route so to speak . So being free to vary both - the plot and journey is key.  i often ask questions as to how things may work out and then ask myself why ?

The challenge of this piece of writing, stems very much from its subject matter and premise.
i feel it is important to stretch myself in characterisation, situations and the narrative  - to leave my comfort zone. However there some similarities with my previous piece, insofar as I remain committed to tackling marginalized voices and issues. The protagonist, first surfaced in my previous choreopoem and their story  it seemed to me needed to be told. So this the second narrative, in what I plan will be a trilogy i.e. Solitaire's  narrative in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Diva, being the first in the series. 

 Gabriela Garcia Marquez:  the father of magic realism and Sue Townsend: a stunning writer from my home city.  Both of them sadly passed way this month. Two very different writers, but both held in very high esteem by me. Their  great writing  and fascinating lives, will continue to be  source of  great inspiration to me to continue on my own journey as  writer.